Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1887-08-27
Allan QlatGrnail
BY I'll. RIDER HAGGARD.
AUTHOR OF "KTSa soLoNoSs MINES" she"
JESS" THE wITcH's HEAD" ETC.

rnen L, too, fell senseless. The next thing
that remember was feeling a breath of ain
upon my face. Ny eyes opened with great
difficulty looked up. Far, far above me
there was light, though around me was deep
gloom. Then / remembered, and looked.
The canoe still floated down the river, and in
the bottom of it lay the naked forms of my
companions. "Were they deadF' wondered.
@Was | left alone in this awful place?" /
knew not. Next l became conscious of
burning thirst. / put my hand over the edge
of the boat into the water and drew it up
again with cry: No wonder, nearly all the
skin was burnt Off the back of Ia The water,
however, was cold, or nearly so, and drank
pints and splashed myself all over. My body
seemed to suck up the fluid as one may see a
brick wall suck,up rain after drought; but
where was burned the touch of it caused in
tense pain. Then bethought myself of the
others, and dragging myself towards them
with difficulty, sprinkled them with water,
and to my joy they began to recover--Um-
slopogaas first. then the others. Next they
drank, absorbing water like so many sponges.
Then, feeling chilly-a queer contrast to our
recent sensations-we began as best we could
to get into our clothes AS we did so Good
pointed to the port side of the canoe; it was
all blistered with heat, and in places actually
charred. Had it been built like our civilized
boats, Good said that the planks would have
certainly warped and let in enough water to
sink us; but fortunately it was dug out of
the soft, willowy wood of a single great tree,
and had sides nearly three inches and bot
tom four inches thick. What that awful
flame was we never discovered; but suppose
that there was at this spot crack or hole in
the bed of the river through which vast
volume of gas forced its way from its vol
canic home in the bowels of the earth towards
the upper air. How it first became ignited it
is, of course, impossible to say--probably, 1
should think, from some spontaneous explo-
sion of mephitic gases.
AS soon as we had got some things on and
shaken ourselves together little we set to
work to make out where we were now
have said that there was light above, and on
examination we found that it came from the
sky, Our river that was, Sir Henry said,
literal realization Of the wild vision of the
poet, was no longer underground, but was
running on its darksome way, not now
through "caverns measureless to man." but
between two frightful cliffs which cannot
have been less than 1000 feet high. So high
were they, indeed, that though the sky was
above us, where we were was dense gloom
not darkness, indeed, but the gloom of a
room closely suffered in the daytime. Up
on either side rose the great straight cliffs,
grim and forbidding, till the eye grew dizzy
with trying to measure their sheer height.
The little space Of sky that marked where
they ended lay like thread of blue upon
their soaring blackness, which was unrelieved
by any tree or creeper. Here and there,
however, grew ghostiy patches of long gray
lichen, hanging motionless to the rock, as the
whita heard to the chin of dead man 1t
seemed as though only the dregs or heavier
part of the light had sunk to the bottom of
this awful place. No bright winged sunbeam
could fall so low; they died far, far above our
heads.
By the rivers edge was a little shore
formed of round fragments of rock washed
into this shape by the constant action of
water, and giving the place the appearance
of being strewn with thousands of fossil cam
non balls. Evidently when the water of the
underground river is high there is no beach
at all, or very little, between the border of
the stream and the precipitous cliffs; but now
there was a space of seven or eight yards
And here, ON this beach, we determined to
land, in order to rest ourselves little after
all that we had gone through, and to stretch
our limbs. 1t was a dreadful place, but it
would give an hours respite from the terrors
of the river and also allow of our repacking
and arranging the canoe. Accordingly we
selected what looked like favorable spot,
and with some little difficulty managed to
beach the canoe and scramble out on to the
round, inhospitable pebbles.
"My word" called out Good, who was on
shore the first "what an awful place! it's
enough to give one fit" And he laughed.
Instantly a laundering voice took up his
words, magnifying them a hundred times.
"Give one a fit-hoi ho ho!" "a ft-ho!
hol ho!" answered another voice, in wild ac-
cents. from far up the cliff "a fiji fit
afitw chimed in voice after voice, each fling
ing the words to and fro with shouts of aw-
full laughter to the invisible lips of the other
till the whole place echoed with the words
and with shrieks of fiendish merriment,
which at last ceased as suddenly as they had
begun.
ooh, mon Deuln yelled Alphonse, startled
unite out of such self command as he
possessed.
"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu" the
Titanic echoes thund cred, shrieked and walled
In every CONCEIVABLE tone.
"Ah," said Umslopogaas, calmly, II clearly
perceive that devils live here. Wen, the
place looks like it,"
| tried to explain TO him that the cause Of
all the hubbub was very remarkable and
interesting echo but he would not believe it.
"Ah," he said, 81 know an echo when hear
one There was one lived opposite my kraal
In Zululand, and the Intombis" (maidens)
"7,sed to talk with it. But if what we hear is
full grown echo, mine at home can only
have been baby No, no-they are devils
ap there. But don't think much of them,
though he added, taking a pinch of snuff.
"They can copy what one says, but they don't
seem to he able to talk on their own account,
and they dare not show their faces" and he
relapsed into silence and apparently paid no
further attention to such contemplate fiends
After this we found 1t necessary to keep our
conversation doNn to a whisper-for it was